+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
God only loves one type of person: sinners. Thank God we’re all sinners. Sometimes the trick is just acknowledging that’s what we are, and that’s what the tax collector has over the Pharisee. The full force of this parable might be dulled a bit for us because we are so accustomed to viewing the Pharisees as the “baddies” since Jesus frequently had run-ins with them. But not all Pharisees were like the ones that were trying to entrap our Lord. Most of them were just very faithful, very scholarly Jews who concerned themselves with following the Law as well as they could do. These were, as the late great Robert Farrer Capon said, the sorts of people from whom we’d be pleased to receive a pledge card, and we’d probably ask them to consider standing for election to vestry. If we had a Pharisee in the congregation today, I’d probably ask him to lead Sunday School for me this morning, because I know he’d do a better job than I, at least in terms of having all the relevant biblical information front of mind.
The tax collector, on the other hand, is a bad hombre. He’s a traitor to his own people because he extorts money from them on behalf of the Roman Empire. He survives on a twisted form of commission, whereby his livelihood consists of all the extra shekels he can wring out of the Judaean taxpayer which he doesn’t actually owe but which he thuggishly extracts anyway. So he knows he’s a bad guy, and that’s why he realizes he can’t save himself. The Pharisee can’t save himself either, but his own good works and respectability blind him to this reality.
Several Protestant churches observe today as “Reformation Sunday” which has always made me a bit uncomfortable, and I’m grateful that it’s not a feast on our calendar. Some sort of church reform and realignment was no doubt necessary in the Sixteenth Century, but I for one have always viewed this as a necessary evil, the reality of church disunity is a sadness and a scandal which we should pray God will heal in his good time, and it baffles me that the schisms which gave us so many “flavors” of Christianity should be celebrated.
So, I have issues with Martin Luther (and with Henry VIII for that matter, lest you think I can’t see the beam in my own eye). That said, he had some ideas that I think were pretty good, and I particularly like some of his most shocking statements—not being a controversialist myself, I guess I enjoy living vicariously through historical figures who stirred the pot. So, in order to spite the devil who wants nothing more than for us to trust in our own righteousness and thus despair, Luther suggested one should commit a small sin from time to time, just to remind ourselves that we’re covered by Grace. I would not personally recommend this approach, because I think we’re going to sin whether we make our minds up to do or not, but I do appreciate how edgy he was being.
More famously (or infamously), Luther is charged with saying “sin boldly.” Well, yeah, if you take two words out of context, this sounds bad. But here’s what he actually wrote:
If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are in this world we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness but, as Peter says, we look for a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). It is enough that by the riches of God’s glory we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day
In other words, consider the publican whose sin can convict him, who can be convinced he needs a savior. Thus, our own good deeds can become a stumbling block. The Pharisee’s approach is all well and good so long as he is perfectly righteous, so long as he is not a sinner. The problem is he is a sinner, he was born that way, he just can’t see it.
We often twist this parable by imagining that in being justified, the tax collector goes on to lead a virtuous life. He gets better, he acts more kindly, perhaps he pays back all those people from whom he extorted money. He certainly resigns from his inherently dishonest career. But Jesus doesn’t say that. That’s not part of the story. What if, instead, after a day or two, or maybe just as soon as he left the temple, he roughed up another taxpayer? And then the next week he shows up again praying for mercy. He can’t escape his wickedness. His chosen profession gives him plenty of opportunity for sin, yes, but he’d sin no matter what he was doing. Does he leave the temple justified after every penitential visit?
Yes he does, and we don’t like that. We love stories about reformed sinners who have a conversion and never mess up again in some way, large or small. But those people don’t actually exist. What we really want is for the tax collector to become the Pharisee. That satisfies our desire for fairness, but it deprives the publican of the possibility of justification.
There is a rubric in our prayer book which allows for the occasional omission of the general confession. I’ve known of places that omitted it for the entirety of the Easter season, which in my opinion suggests a gross misunderstanding of the meaning of the word “occasional.” Anyway, I understand why one might choose to omit it on Christmas and Easter Days, but I won’t do it because maybe those who only show up on Christmas and Easter could use the opportunity for confession and absolution as much as the rest of us. (On the other hand, maybe the people who only show up a couple times a year do so, because they’re so holy they only need that much church, unlike you and me.) I, for one, benefit from a daily reminder of my own sin and God’s amazing grace in calling me worthy in spite of it. Maybe I’m a slow learner. Or maybe I am, maybe we all are, a bit more like the tax collector than we’d like to think. And I’m actually glad of that, because, like I said at the beginning—God only loves one type of person: sinners. Thank God we’re all sinners.
+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.